


Hand-Me-Down Shoes To Fill

by SweeterThanArsenic



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Adult Dipper Pines, Alternate Universe - No Weirdmageddon, Apprentice Dipper Pines, Codependency, Light Angst, M/M, Mentor Molds Student in Own Image. Neither Can Escape Resulting Codependency Despite Best Attempts, Uncle/Nephew Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29034729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweeterThanArsenic/pseuds/SweeterThanArsenic
Summary: Every summer, Mabel and Stan come to visit their siblings in Gravity Falls. And every summer, Dipper and Ford pretend they're just a normal uncle and nephew, or as normal as two nerds living alone in the woods can be.But they aren't, and the tension of pretending wears on them.
Relationships: Dipper Pines/Ford Pines
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	Hand-Me-Down Shoes To Fill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheeon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheeon/gifts).



> Made for the prompt "Mentor Molds Student in Own Image. Neither Can Escape Resulting Codependency Despite Best Attempts".

“Do you think Mabel is coming this year?”

It’s a pointless question, but Ford always asks. Mabel is going to come this year, like she came last year and the year before. She has never missed celebrating her birthday with Dipper, even though they now live several states apart.

“Yes, of course she’s coming.” Dipper looks up at Ford, a bit hesitant. “I’m not sure when Stan will be here.” Stan has never missed it either, but he’s been in danger of missing it. A few years ago, everyone got together to break him out of prison so that he could attend the party.

Stan usually waits in California and drives Mabel up to Gravity Falls, but this year he got an active warrant in California, and Dipper isn’t really sure what will happen.

Technically, Stan has a warrant in Oregon too, but Dipper doubts the Gravity Falls police force uses their internet for anything more work related than cat gifs, and Dipper hasn’t mentioned the online record to Ford. Ford still leaves all that computer navigation to him.

It’s the one thing Dipper is better at than Ford.

“Well then.” Ford’s expression is smooth now. “Tell me when you think he’ll get here.”

If it were Mabel, Ford would ask Dipper to say hi; if it were Mabel, Ford might even ask for the phone and talk to her himself. Mabel doesn’t really understand why Ford doesn’t talk to Stan. Dipper is the only one who understands that. He’s the only one who understands a lot of things about Ford.

Maybe that’s the other thing he’s good at, the secret and esoteric study of Stanford Pines.

Well, if it counts, he’s really really good at it.

“What are you smiling at?” Ford asks, flipping Dipper’s cap up. Dipper grabs at his hat with both hands, pushing it back down, but he’s still smiling.

“It’s nothing!”

“Fine. Keep your secrets, you little Freemason.” But he drops it, and that’s another thing about Ford: he doesn’t usually let sleeping secrets lie.

It’s because he trusts Dipper.

Another secret that Dipper has is that that’s his favorite accomplishment out of everything he’s done. Even the yeti trap.

* * *

Dipper doesn’t look as much like Ford as he wants to. It’s too frivolous to mention, honestly, but Dipper thinks about it sometimes when he looks at him. His hands are too slender, and even if they weren’t, he’s not going to gain an extra finger anytime soon. He always wears a hat, but going without one means that people will see his old birthmarks, so there’s no winning there. Really the only thing he can change now is his hair, which is too pale for the old, old photograph of Ford when he was his age, but even if he dyed it it curls differently than Ford’s does, now or then.

Great Uncle Ford looks like a hero, and no matter how many times Ford compliments Dipper’s heroics, Dipper just doesn’t. His muscles aren’t as defined, his posture isn’t as straight, and his beard still comes in patchy. His best heroic moments are when he isn’t thinking about it at all. Kind of like Ford, he guesses. Ford doesn’t _think_ about being a hero, he just does it.

But there's one way Dipper still tries to look like him, wearing a trenchcoat the same color as Ford's. Even though he doesn’t fill it out like Ford does, he still likes wearing it. When he wears it, they kind of look like… well… a pair.

It’s embarrassingly cheesy to think about. And it doesn't stop there. He sometimes wishes he needed glasses now, the way Mabel does, so he had an excuse to wear those too.

But Wendy and Soos and even Stan remark on how similar he is to Ford now, way more than they ever did when he was a kid.

So… he’s on his way, definitely. One day, he’ll be just as impressive as Ford is.

* * *

“What are you worrying about?”

Ford looks up from checking over the written list of all the supplies they’re getting before their other family gets here, over at his nephew sitting on the bed next to him. His inner monologue could be mistaken as just musing over whether or not his sprinkles contact will still supply him this year by a lot of people. But not by Dipper.

Ford doesn't respond immediately. It’s the sort of thing Ford would normally avoid saying out loud, but Ford shares everything with Dipper nowadays.

“It’s… not about Bill, right?” Dipper asks. Dipper doesn’t look concerned about that, but then again, Ford promised to stop hiding things about Bill from him. Dipper swore to help stop that demon and prevent the apocalypse, and even if it’s a burden that Dipper doesn’t deserve to carry, it’s a burden Ford is thankful he can share.

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” Ford tells him. “I’ve just been thinking about this summer.”

“Yeah?”

“As enjoyable as Mabel and Stanley’s visits are, we can’t be normal while they’re here.” And maybe it’s not someone else’s normal, but it’s theirs. Their normal means reading until they fall sleep on their work, or else dragging the other into their shared bed. Their normal means constant, casual physical touch, never truly being lonely. Their normal is as effortless and refreshing as breathing in earth’s atmosphere. And being "normal" means none of that.

The average definition of normal means several months of celibacy, enforced by the knowledge that even one slip up is the difference between a drawn out, one-sided truce Mabel and Stan don't know exists and a fight that would inevitably break out unless they take drastic measures. It means pretending they aren’t as close as they are, worrying about what someone else would think. Someone else's normal means trying to read someone else’s mind and never quite succeeding, not knowing how long is too long to leave a hand on Dipper’s shoulder or whether Mabel’s exclamations about them being cute are genuine, or what her jealousy means. And even if they weren’t together, an average relationship means that it’s them who would be weird for not seeking out a lover, someone who might disrupt the balance between them.

Ford is tired of other people’s kind of normal, as tired as he once was of being “special” in ways strangers only ever hated him for. And as tired as he occasionally is of doing it for Mabel, for Stan, for the children of a brother he barely knew, he’s not tired of doing it for Dipper.

Dipper has been quiet for a minute now, thinking about it. Ford stares at him, takes in the features of a man he’s proud to be related to. His cabin used to be his refuge, years and years ago, but it was also one of the places he was loneliest. It’s not like that any more. Ford’s vague yearning for closeness, for a conversation even as superficial as buying his groceries, is gone now, wrapped up in someone who truly understands him like no one else ever has. Someone who isn’t using him. In Dipper.

Ford wasn’t sure Dipper felt the same contentment with what they have before they began their sexual relationship. He still isn’t sure, when Dipper lingers in town for hours and comes back smiling.

But when Dipper takes Ford’s hand, Ford is reassured. “I get what you mean. Sometimes… I wish it was just the two of us.”

The words linger in the air, in their brains, in the way they’ve been reluctant to set up the extra bed that is nominally Dipper’s for their family’s arrival.

“It could be.” They might want other connections, from time to time, but they don’t need them. Not like they need each other.

Dipper squeezes Ford’s hand, leaning against him. He rests his head on Ford’s shoulder, against his neck, listening to Ford’s pulse. “Yeah. I know.”

Ford listens to Dipper breathe, Dipper’s hand soothingly alive in his, until he’s almost dozing off. And then Dipper says something Ford misses.

“What?”

“Maybe one day, it will be just us.” Against the world, or with it.

Together.


End file.
